The Marble Room
by editor frog
Summary: When Kaylee goes missing, a certain someone from Simon and River's past turns out to become more than a formidable enemy--especially where Kaylee's unborn child is concerned...
1. Chapter 1

She shivered. _Why's it so cold in here?_ she thought as she opened her eyes and tried rolling out of bed. _Probably just the temp regulator deciding to quit again, and after I told the Cap'n it needed replacin'…_ As her feet hit cold stone, however, she suddenly realized that she wasn't in her bunk.

Kaylee tried to shake the sleep from her system and looked around the tiny space she was in. The walls were made of smooth black stone, and there was no hint of a door. The floor was made of the same substance, and it felt to her like some type of solid marble. There was a small wooden table, and a chair, and the bed Kaylee sat on was a great four-poster—one like she imagined in some fancy Core bedroom. She got up, adjusting the bulk of her weight to her feet, and slowly began tracing the walls for some sign of an exit. There wasn't one she could easily find.

What was more troublesome were the silver bands around her wrists. Kaylee didn't remember putting them on, and they were on just tight enough that she couldn't pry them off with her fingers. There had to be an internal lock on the inch-wide bands that kept them on.

The fog finally evaporated from behind her eyes and she took a look at what she was wearing. Not her usual nightgown or one of the last floral dresses that still fit her—no, she found herself in an almost transparent, white gauzy gown that just came to her knees. The garment was incredibly thin—thin enough to allow the cold to seep right through the cloth and into her chilled form.

Kaylee sat down in the chair, glad to have something solid to sit on, and tried to remember what had happened before she woke up in here. She absent-mindedly ran her hand over her abdomen as she recalled going to the parts dealer on Elgin, hoping to find a new catalyzer and maybe a used temp regulator. She remembered the dealer, a jovial man named Thomas, directing her to the used parts shelves and tried to set her up with some new capacitors along with her purchases. She remembered leaving, and walking towards _Serenity_…and then nothing. Wherever she was, it was not of her choosing. Kaylee knew eventually she'd be missed, and that by now the captain was working a plan to find her.

There were no windows in the tiny room, and no chronometers either—there was no way to know just how long she'd been here. There were no panels, no wires, no instruments of any kind that might help her to escape and get back home. There were only four marble walls, a marble floor, a marble ceiling with solid-paned recessed lighting, and the sparse furniture. Whoever had put her here seemed to want to make her comfortable, she thought—but not _too_ comfortable.

Kaylee grimaced as her stomach growled. It felt like she hadn't eaten in days. Her mind wandered back to before she'd left the ship for parts, where Simon had promised her a surprise when she returned. She remembered the taste of his lips as she'd kissed him, and her voice telling him she'd be back before he knew it. She could still see that _swai_ smile of his playing across his face.

_Simon…_

A little jolt brought her out of her reverie. She had been able to convince him that she was capable of doing her job, and could until the time came. She'd had to convince him not to come with her to the parts dealer. It hadn't taken much, seeing as Elgin was filled with Alliance and the prices still hadn't been lifted from his or River's heads. He had unwillingly conceded, making her promise to have the parts delivered and that she wouldn't wear herself out. It had been an easy one to make.

Waking up in strange places, though…that was something else entirely. There was a slight taste in her mouth, like she'd been eating copper. _I was doped_, she thought with a sudden alarm. _What if…_

"There will be no ill effects, I assure you," came a voice from behind her. Kaylee spun around in the chair to see a man standing there, his salt-and-pepper hair shining from the reflection of the recessed light.

"Who—who are you?" she asked, a quaver in her voice. Kaylee struggled to sit up, but something was forcing her down into the chair. There was a slight pull on her wrists, and she soon realized that the silver bands acted as magnets or some such, pulling her to a predetermined point in the floor. She couldn't lift her hands, even to wrap them around her midsection.

"Someone who is concerned about your child," said the man, carefully walking over and rubbing his hand across the slight swell of her belly. Kaylee cringed at the touch. "You see, this child will be special. More than you could possibly know."

Kaylee could imagine, however. She knew there was a chance that her baby might end up a Reader, like River. She knew that it was likely that her child might have a knack for books or maybe for trades, and that her baby might be smarter than even her genius sister-in-law. Kaylee had smiled at the thought, though she only cared that her child---_their _child---was healthy and safe. She knew that the baby would be loved by them and by those who loved them, and that was enough.

Her eyes widened in horror as she realized what was happening. She tried to pull away from the man, who was busy preparing a hypo, but the silver bands on her wrists kept her in place. "No," she whimpered, first softly and then louder as he came forward and stuck her abdomen with the syringe, drawing fluid from it. She tried pushing him away with her feet, but he merely grasped her ankles and held them under his arm, rendering her functionally immobile. When the man had taken what he wanted, he let her legs drop, but her arms remained drawn to her sides.

"It's no use to struggle," said the man coldly but plainly. "By now you've figured out what those bracelets are used for." He turned, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small remote. It held three red buttons, and he pushed one of them. A holo-door materialized in the far corner of the room—the one farthest from where Kaylee sat. "This is the only hand-held key to the door, Kaylee," he said, "and I carry it at all times. There is no escaping, so don't bother to try."

"How do you know my name?" she asked. "And why am I here?"

"First," he said, "I have many connections. I knew eventually I would need to find a way to retain my standing and my legacy. It took years, but I knew that my children couldn't just disappear. The second is even simpler: your child—my _grandchild_--is going to make that happen for me. You, Kaylee, are merely a means to an end."

Kaylee's eyes widened in fright, and she began to struggle against her invisible bonds with more force.

"I told you not to bother," said the man, who she now realized was Simon and River's father. "Five months from now the child will be mine, and _this_ time, things will be done right."

***

"What do you mean, _she's not here_?!"

Simon was in a panic. He _knew_ he never should have let Kaylee go to town alone. He should have tried to get someone to go with her…

"Did she make it to buy the parts?" asked Mal. "Don't seem like her to not have done the thing she meant to do…"

"Fella at the dealer said she placed an order, even paid extra to have 'em delivered," said Jayne, handing the captain a receipt. "She left, didn't take this with her…well, that ain't like her."

"No, it ain't," Mal conceded. He scanned the dock for any sign of his first mate, hoping she might have found the mechanic lost in a shop somewhere—or have better news, at any rate. His face began to show the faintest signs of worry.

Simon, on the other hand, had moved from pacing to sitting on the catwalk steps. He held his head, trying to collect his thoughts. She'd made the purchases, so she had been okay until then. The trouble was, where had she gone after that?

Finally Zoe appeared, looking as serious as ever. "What?" asked Simon and Mal in unison as she entered the cargo bay.

"Seems there was some trouble."

"What sort of trouble?" Simon asked. The look on Mal's face began to deepen.

"Folks say there was a little bit of a struggle not too far from the parts shop. Asked around a little, found out that some guy's daughter just had a fainting spell."

"And?"

"The "daughter" seems to fit Kaylee's description perfectly." Though her appearance was unreadable, Simon knew the woman was just as concerned as they were. "Likely someone took her, decided not to tell us why."

"He took her."

The words startled everyone, and five pairs of eyes focused on the wisp of a girl standing underneath the catwalk. "What are you talking about, _mei-mei_?" Simon asked, trying to keep his emotions in check.

"He took her, Simon. Wants to do what he couldn't, not with us. New life, new chance. He'll hurt her, but baby means more. Salvation."

"What the ruttin' hell's she on about now?" Jayne snapped.

The older Tam had learned to take it a piece at a time. Together, River's words often didn't make sense, but taken apart they sometimes might lead to something. "New chance…do what he couldn't…not us." Simon's face blanched at the last word. A stream of Chinese escaped his lips, cursing every imaginable thing he could think of.

"You know who done this?" asked the captain, in that _this-better-start-makin'-sense-right-ruttin'-now_ tone he reserved for such times as this.

"If I understand it right…I think my father had Kaylee kidnapped."

"To get you, or River?" asked Inara, who had been silently worrying since Zoe and Jayne arrived.

"Again, if I understand it right…I think he means to take our baby," he said. "And he's likely somewhere where he can keep her prisoner and just wait it out." Another set of curses spewed forth from his lips, this time making even Jayne's head turn at the normally proper doctor.

"Well, now." Mal's jaw set, his face seething with fury.

"Well indeed, sir," said Zoe.

"Well, what are we waiting for?!" snapped Jayne. He held a soft spot for the mechanic---as everyone on _Serenity_ did---but the thought of her and the doc's little one being taken by someone who turned crazy girl…well, crazy…that was just too much.

"Jayne, we have no idea where he might have taken Kaylee. For all we know, she could be across three quadrants by now," spat Inara. She was worried for her _mei-mei_ and furious at the man who would bring harm to her or her baby.

"Any ideas on where the old man might head?" asked Mal.

"Honestly…no," answered Simon, the admission killing him. "The best I can think of is to start at the beginning and go from there."

"You can't mean…" started Inara, but she merely watched as both the captain and the doctor started up the catwalk steps, their determination clear.

"We're gonna head for Osiris. Best place to start."


	2. Chapter 2

**I forgot to add earlier that this is set post-BDM and the characters belong not to me. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

**

Kaylee had paced the walls of the tiny room dozens of times, looking for the faintest crack in the wall to work with, but each time she came up empty. Every time she tried going near the corner with the holo-door, the silver bands around her wrists would stop her arms from touching it.

The mechanic had thought about using parts from the recessed lighting to devise a method of escape, but even if she could _reach_ the panel, the light covering was too hard and thick to break with her bare hands. There was no hope of a tool of any kind, either---every time someone brought Kaylee food, the dishes it came on were made of cheap plastic that broke under even moderate pressure. What's more, the _hundan_ that had locked her up here seemed to think she couldn't be trusted with a plastic knife—if there was meat of any kind, it came already cut into pieces.

She'd cried herself to sleep the first few nights (or, at least, what she _thought_ was night, as there was still no way for her to tell time in this prison), her energy completely spent. Kaylee remembered Simon warning her to take things easy and nap whenever she could, but that was before she'd been locked up by a deranged lunatic who wanted to do Lord-knows-what with her baby.

Kaylee had made herself sick with worry over that thought. Her dreams were haunted with images of needles poking and prodding her child's tiny little form; of wires protruding from a tiny little head with dark hair and beautiful blue eyes… She'd tried to push the thoughts from her mind, mentally reminding herself that Simon would come for her, that the captain and Zoe and Jayne and even River would come for her, that the _tamade xio de lioumang_ that resembled her husband would never get the chance to hurt her baby—not _ever_.

Her teeth chattered, and she drew the comforter up around her neck. The thin gown she wore was not enough to keep out the persistent chill in the room. Kaylee had asked—even pleaded—for something warmer, but her guards merely shook their heads and left without ever letting slip a word of conversation.

Every day there was some new test; some new experiment that the elder Tam wanted to try, and though she'd fought and screamed and resisted with all her might, the silver bands still drew her hands behind her back. She'd still been pushed out of the holo-door into a long, dark hallway that led to rooms with cold exam tables with restraints on them, where needles poked her in so many places Kaylee felt like a breathing pincushion. The first time she'd been "examined," Kaylee screamed and cried so much her throat was ragged and finally she found a gag shoved in her mouth in an attempt to keep her quiet.

She tried to curl her knees underneath her chin, trying to generate more heat under the thin blankets. _Why's it got to be so cold?_ she thought. She clasped her hands around her growing belly, and softly began to sing a lullaby. She'd asked Simon not long after they'd found out if the baby could hear her when she sang, and though he'd said that it was probably too early to tell, he thought the baby would probably like to hear her as much as he did.

Kaylee sang, in a voice barely above a whisper, trying to sing both herself and her unborn child into a dreamless sleep.

***

"The tests look promising," said a voice. Gabriel turned to see the young man holding a copy of the girl's chart. "The child is showing even better initial response than we thought—and it's only five months along. With luck, you may have an extraordinary find on your hands, Dr. Tam."

_Dr. Tam._ No one had called him that in ages. He wished he still had the capability to perform the tests on the little space whore himself. Gabriel had seen hundreds of lovely young women that would have looked stunning on his son's arm. _But what does_ my _son do? Rants about torture and conspiracy, destroys not only his life but his sister's and mine as well, and shacks up with some Rim-world tramp on a freighter full of criminals and thieves._ He shook his head at the thought.

Every action, every result from the time of Simon's birth, had been carefully planned. Gabriel owed his political benefactors a child, and that child was supposed to be his daughter. The talent she possessed was unsurpassed. Didn't they understand that there were standards to uphold? Sacrifices to be made in the name of advancement?

He settled back into a large chair, and smiled at the thought of presenting his benefactors with a child the likes of which they had never seen. Only five months in the womb, and already it was showing strong signs of being a Reader…

***

"You sure this is the place?"

Simon looked at the charred hull that had, at one time, been a sprawling estate. The entrance gates looked as if they had been torn away long ago; there were ragged stumps where there once had been a grove of birch trees; and the remnants of the house had become a place where birds and other small creatures nested. Even Zoe commented about the place looking a bit like _Serenity_ before Mal got his crew together and fixed it up.

"This is it…" He stopped a moment, remembering the splendor that his parents had always kept the place in. "...I guess," he finished.

It had been a month since Kaylee's kidnapping, and the crew had just barely made it to Osiris on the proceeds of their job on Elgin. Simon realized quickly that in order to find her and the baby, they would need to either pull a few quick jobs, or find something of value by looting his parents' estate. From the looks of things, though, someone else had beaten them to the job.

"This how all rich folk act? Go all crazy and torch their beds for fun?" Jayne asked, carrying no less than six of his favorite pistols. He'd wanted to bring Vera, claiming that Gabriel Tam might still be inside, but Mal had firmly put a halt to that notion. "Don't need you wakin' up the neighbors, Jayne," he'd commented.

"Neighbors?!" Jayne had cried. "You see any ruttin' people livin' here?" He swept his hand over the landscape, using a gun Simon only knew as "Lisa" as a pointer.

They managed to brave the debris left strewn over the floor. Broken glass, bits of paneling and plaster, and even twisted bits of metal lay pell-mell over a foyer carpet that Simon remembered as spotless.

"Why would anyone leave their house in this condition?" Inara asked as she managed to walk into a layer of cobwebs. "Especially one as opulent as this one appears to have been?"

"Oppo-huh?" Jayne was confused.

"Opulent. Means fancy," supplied Zoe.

"Oh."

"It was. The place was like a museum—there were only two or three rooms River and I were allowed in outside of our rooms." Simon began picking his way up a dilapidated staircase. "My father's study should still be up here, I think."

"Something up there?" called Mal, deciding to follow him up the rickety steps.

"If we're lucky, his desk. Maybe there's a clue to where he's hiding out now." Simon had to suppress a chuckle at this thought. He and River were "hiding out" after what their father had done, and now the _hundan_ seemed to be doing the very same thing.

There was a creak and shudder of rotten boards, but the two managed to make their way to the second floor. "Last door on the…" Simon began, trying to remember. "…left," he finished, starting to make strides towards an oak and ebony door.

Just then, there was another _creak_…and the floor suddenly disappeared from underneath the young doctor's feet. He managed to hold onto the boards surrounding him, but he knew that the rest of the floor might cave in at any moment…


	3. Chapter 3

…and then, just as he was about to fall completely through the floor, a hand grabbed him. "I've got you," said a voice Simon didn't recognize.

The doctor allowed himself to be hauled up through the hole that his weight had created through the rotten boards, only to find that his "savior" was an old man. "Not from these parts, are you, son?" the man asked, dusting his hands off onto a pair of worn overalls.

Simon decided to play this one safe. "No, not really." He turned to see Mal racing for him and he put his hand out to stop him. "Careful," he cautioned loudly. "The floor's unstable."

The old man chuckled. "Yeah, pretty much. Hasn't been right in some years. Not since the old doctor went crazy in the brainpan, anyway." He then motioned the two men to follow him, and, through a series of carefully-placed footsteps, managed to get both Simon and the captain back on the ground floor in one piece. "I kinda thought you weren't from around here," he said casually to Simon. "You have just a trace of the accent, but it's muddled up now. Rim-worlder?"

Simon decided to play along. "Yeah." He then motioned towards the ruined remains of his childhood home. "What happened here?"

"Well now, that's a story everyone knows," chided the old man. "But, seeing as you're not from here, I'll tell you."

He took the crew, who had reassembled near the stairs, out into what once had been a courtyard. Trees of all kinds lay broken and scattered like trash. Hedges that were once well-kept grew rampant. Various weeds sprouted where elegant flower beds once stood. At the edge of the grounds lay a small headstone, and it was here that the man began to tell his story.

"Family that lived here was the Tams—richest people on this end of the world, if you believe the tales. Old man was a doctor, and his son was too; even better than his father. The lady of the house was a beautiful woman, and had a kindness about her that radiated. There was a daughter, too—real smart, from what I hear. Got sent off to a special school and everything." The man paused. "'Bout then is when things got interesting.

"See, from what I understand, the boy went crazy. Ran off, snatched his sister out of that fancy school of hers. Broke some set of laws or some such, 'cause the both of 'em got prices on their heads that'd feed a poor man the rest of his life." The man shook his head. "Was a real tragedy. Y'see, I was the gardener here, and every so often I'd see the kids out in the yard, playing or reading or whatnot." "Thick as thieves, those two. Always made me wish I'd had kids of my own, seeing them."

Mal slipped Simon a barely noticeable look of concern, but kept silent.

The gardener continued. "Oh, things went bad fast after that. The lady of the house was heartbroken, losing her kids like that. She thought the boy was crazy, at first—'course, that's what everyone believes—but there was something about her that didn't quite believe it. The old doctor, he was furious 'bout the whole affair. Cold man, that one. Was so concerned about how things looked that he never questioned what had happened. Wrote both kids off, just like that."

"How do you know he disowned them?" asked Inara.

"Well, miss, people talk, and this was one of the better pieces of gossip back then. "'Course, no one spoke of it in his presence—not even the lady; fact is, he completely forbade anyone from mentioning the kids. Broke her heart, it did. She used to spend hours out on these grounds, crying her eyes out over what she'd lost."

Simon had to try and stop from crying himself at that mention. He'd always believed his mother to be a kind woman, if a little distant, but he thought of her grieving over his and River's absence made him feel just a tinge of shame. He never regretted what he'd done, not for an instant—but he wished wholeheartedly that he could have spared his mother that kind of heartbreak.

His thoughts wandered back to Kaylee, and the baby, and he realized that time was not working in their favor. "The man who lived here—the old doctor—we think he's kidnapped a girl and her baby. Do you have any idea where he might be?"

Just then the old man pulled a leather-bound journal out of his overalls. Simon recognized it as one of his father's journals. "This might be of some help to you, then," he said, handing it to Simon. "Can't read much, myself, but I know it has something to do with what he planned to do with his kids. The lady of the house, she found it one day, and was furious after she read it. She gave it to me, told me to keep it safe. That night, she confronted the old doctor with whatever was inside of it. The shouting match could be heard all the way out here."

"That's _it_?" said Jayne, in a tone that said he didn't believe that was the end of the story. "A shouting match, then _this_?" He kept switching his gaze from the headstone to the remains of the house. "That stone…"

"Afraid so, son," the gardener replied. "Most people don't catch that one right off. You're smarter than you look." He nodded in grim approval at Jayne's discovery.

"Catch what?" asked Mal, a look of recognition beginning to spread over his features.

"He locked her in, made her stay," River said, holding a vacant look on her face. "Lit the match, walked away." She knelt down and brushed her hand over the little stone. Simon could just make out the name that was crudely carved on it: Reagan Tam.

"Man killed the lady for finding out what he was up to," said Mal softly.

"Exactly right," the old man confirmed. "There wasn't much left of the poor woman, but I took her out here and gave her a proper burial. Was the only one left, by that point. All the other help had long since gone." He shook his head sadly.

Simon stood in utter silence. He knew his father was a controlling, calculating bastard, but killing his own _wife_? It took a moment for the thought to settle in. He then thought of Kaylee. "Thank you for the story, sir," he said. "But I think it's time we got on our way."

"Of course," replied the gardener, walking the party up towards the entrance.

As the old man turned to leave them, he said, "You know, a better story is the one about the people who have disappeared trying to bring in the Tam children." Simon froze for a moment, thinking to himself _please, God, not now, please don't do this to us._ However, he found himself asking about that particular tale.

"Well, way I hear it, many's the man who's tried to catch those kids. Few federal fellows a couple worlds over tried—got themselves a nice case of dead for their trouble. Couple of bounty hunters tried—it's been said no one's heard from them since. Even heard tell of some top Alliance brass trying to lay their hands on them, but failed. Seems those kids have a streak of luck on 'em that can't be beat."

The gardener then turned and looked Simon square in the eye. "Half a million square is a lot of money, son—more money than most folk see in a lifetime." Simon blanched, his ears looking to hear the sounds of Alliance federals at any minute.

The gardener continued. "Me, though—I say, money like that can't be real. Plus, with all those folk gone dead or missing…makes a smart man wonder about it, really." He patted the younger man on the shoulder and said, "You find that girl, young doctor. Chances are if that old man Tam has her, she won't be long for the world—no matter which one she's on."

The crew wasted no time in getting _Serenity_ off the ground and out of atmo, hoping the journal Simon clutched in his hands would give them a clue as to their missing mechanic's location.

***

It had been weeks since Kaylee had spoken. She'd given up screaming and fighting—all it did was spend her energy and nothing came of it anyway, except a few sharp slaps around her head. She'd tried not eating, but after a day of that Kaylee found herself being force-fed through an IV that was streamed towards her womb—thus ensuring the baby was nourished, even if she wasn't.

Every time the mechanic tried a new way to resist her captor, he'd come back with a punishment that was worse. When she refused to cooperate, she was beaten. When she refused food, she had it shoved down her throat or forced through tubes straight to her stomach. When Kaylee tried to speak to her guards in hopes of conversation, her food was pushed through the holo-door and left on the floor. She had to endure being watched as she went to the bathroom, and when she pleaded for privacy Kaylee was told that she couldn't be trusted by herself out of her room.

She curled up on her bed, rubbing her arms against her skin in an attempt to generate heat. The elder Tam had ordered her blankets taken away when Kaylee had tried to ask for something warmer, and the thin gauzy shift was just not enough to keep her from shivering. Her teeth chattered so hard she worried her teeth would break.

"Are you ready to eat now, Kaylee?" came a voice from the foot of the bed—it was _his_ voice, and she cringed.

"Please—it's so cold," she pleaded. She coughed. "Please, can't I have something to keep warm?"

He set the tray on the small table. "Apparently, you haven't learned your lesson," he said flatly. Turning to face her, he leaned over her shivering form. "Take off your dress."

"Wh-wh-what?" Kaylee squeaked, forcing the word out between her rapidly chattering teeth.

"The dress. Take it off."

"You're insane," she said, trying her best to resist.

The elder Tam produced a small scalpel, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. "Take the dress off," he replied sharply, "or I will cut it off. It makes no difference to me how this goes."

Kaylee realized that to defy him would result in her getting hurt even more. She sat up on the mattress, turned around, and slowly pulled the thin garment over her head. She held the cloth next to her abdomen, hoping to warm her belly for a few seconds.

"Turn around and place it on the bed."

Kaylee never felt more ashamed than she did at that moment. Slowly, she turned around and placed the gown on the foot of the bed. She was completely naked, having had not other garments on since she woke up in this place.

"Eventually you will learn, Kaylee. It shouldn't have had to come to this." A smile played slightly on the _hundan's_ lips as he took in the sight of the girl, naked and defenseless, her protruding belly a constant reminder of the prize she carried within her.

Kaylee coughed, a little harder this time.

"Lie down on the bed."

She stood at the foot of the bed, motionless. She was trying with every fiber of her being not to cry.

In an instant Kaylee felt a rough pair of hands push her backwards until she was lying flat on her back. She felt the unwanted tug of the silver bands around her wrists, and soon she found her arms being forced above her head. The bands were drawn to a point in the headboard, and she couldn't pull her arms down around her. A minute later, Kaylee felt something being pulled tight around her ankles, and she realized that the bastard had tied her feet together and strapped the cord to the bar underneath the bed. She had lost her only means of fighting the _liaumang_ off.

The elder Tam pulled out a stethoscope and began listening to Kaylee's chest. The instrument was torture—freezing cold metal applied to her already chilled form, stealing any draught of heat from the spot it touched. "It sounds like you have a slight cough, nothing more. A shot should be able to fix that."

Kaylee's eyes never left the man's hands. She watched as he called for medicine of some sort, and she watched as he measured it out into a syringe and stuck her arm with the needle, forcing a cream-colored liquid into her veins. "That should do the trick," he said crisply.

_If'n it wasn't so gorram cold, I wouldn't be sick_, she thought angrily. Her face contorted with silent fury.

The bastard then sat down in the chair, which he'd pulled next to the bed. He placed his hand on her swollen belly, rubbing it gently. Kaylee's skin crawled as he did, wishing that there were some way to force his hands off. She wriggled under his touch, trying to get him to stop.

"If you don't stop that, I can see to it that the men outside have a turn with you," he said sharply. "It's been some while since they've seen a woman—_any_ woman," he added as an afterthought.

Frightened at the thought, Kaylee stopped moving. She knew what the man was looking for—the flutter of the baby kicking. She'd noticed it herself only a few days ago. She'd smiled at the thought of her baby getting stronger, and had cried when she realized that Simon was missing all of this. Kaylee had imagined his face when he would feel his child kicking, all warmth and smiles, and contented herself with the thought that he would find her before the baby came. She wanted so much to have Simon deliver his own child, to have him experience that joy of bringing a new life into the world.

"There it is," the elder Tam said, satisfied. "It's coming to term on schedule. Ten more weeks, and it'll be here."

He then turned his attention to his captive. "As for you, you need to learn some appreciation. When you do, you can have this back," he snapped, taking the gown into his hands. "Eventually you'll realize that I control everything that happens here: what you wear, what you eat, when you sleep." He glared at her, a look of disgust forming across his face. "And any thoughts you have of those thieves you live with coming to save you, put them to rest. No one knows you're here. No one ever will. I've seen to it."

Kaylee refused to believe that, even for a second.

Soon after, her ankles were released, and after the elder Tam left the room, the silver bands stopped pulling at her wrists. She rubbed them, sitting up on the bed. She'd tried to pry them off, but they were so tight and seamless in their design that she only managed to dig huge scratches into her wrists, having made them bleed more than once. Shivering violently, Kaylee made her way towards the tray of food that had been left, and began picking at it. She wished, more than ever, that she were back home on _Serenity_, wearing Inara's thick fluffy robe and her own warm bunny slippers while bossing Simon and Jayne in her engine room.

She ate sadly, holding on to that thought.


	4. Chapter 4

Simon yawned, his eyes beginning to blur the words written on the yellowed pages of his father's journal. He'd been reading its contents for days, hoping to figure out just what the cold-blooded _hundan_ had planned---both for himself and River, and now for Kaylee. So far, he'd learned that Gabriel Tam had made a deal long ago with both the Alliance party and the Blue Sun Corporation: in order for the man to receive both kickbacks and preferential standing with the government, he had to help them "create" a child that could be molded for government service.

Being a geneticist, Gabriel had been more than willing to uphold his end of the bargain. What Simon had found particularly disturbing was that his father had planned to use _his own children _as part of his research.

Looking back on things now, it made better sense. His mother had been a proper Core wife, beautiful and personable, but not exactly strong-willed. She'd been willing to let his father make many of the decisions that concerned the family, and it led Simon to wonder about her intelligence. Gabriel Tam, on the other hand, had been very bright, but not anything like Simon and certainly nowhere remotely close to River's level. And, he wondered, if the man had "tweaked" his children's intelligence levels, was it possible that he had planted a code in their DNA to create Readers?

This certainly explained a few things, like why his father was so eager to dismiss Simon's concerns about the Academy and his reaction after his son's initial arrest—he was more concerned with pleasing his benefactors than caring for his own children. Simon actually wondered if the man had cared about anything at all other than his position, his social appearance, and his rising stock in a powerful government entity.

He'd spent nearly a week researching the journal, stealing moments between performing minor surgery on Jayne and Mal as they tried to tackle engine maintenance. This last round had been particularly nasty, with Mal suffering a second-degree burn and Jayne needing no less than twelve stitches just above the left knee. There were times that both men gave up and made River fix the problem, but in her own manner of speaking she pointed out that she couldn't both fly the ship _and_ fix the engine, and that something had to give. There were suspicious sounds resonating from the engine room even at this late hour, and Simon worried that the captain would finally break the engine beyond repair and "really crash the gorram thing this time," to use Jayne's words.

Between all of this, they'd had to pull a few jobs that ate up precious time but earned them needed funds for fuel and supplies. Inara had done her part by paying double her rent on the shuttle, and taking as many clients as she could manage in the small time frame she had when the ship landed anywhere in hopes of gathering a little information on Gabriel Tam's whereabouts. So far, she'd come up empty, but she was still hopeful.

The young doctor was grateful to the crew for everything they were doing in hopes of finding Kaylee in time. He finally understood what Mal had meant that day, long ago, after the captain had rescued both him and River from the hill people on Jiangyin—it wasn't about like or dislike, it was about choosing to accept someone as family. Simon continued reading, knowing that if there was a hint of what the bastard was up to, it would be in these pages. It had been enough for him to kill his mother over—surely, it would tell him something.

"Any luck?" came a voice behind him. He turned and saw Inara standing in the doorway, her face filled with concern.

"Not yet, but I am learning a lot about why my father did what he did when I was trying to get River out initially," Simon confessed. "I know that there's something in here that he didn't want known, though—otherwise, he wouldn't have murdered my mother after she'd read it and confronted him."

A stream of Chinese came pouring from Inara's lips, cursing over sixteen generations of his father's ancestors to suffer agony while in the recesses of hell. "The thought of her in that room, before he set the fire…what a horrible way to die," she said, taking one of the kitchen chairs and settling down in it.

"I know." He grimaced, but then turned is attention to the page in his hand. After a moment, he asked, "Do you know anything about the Cerephus belt?"

Inara let the name register for a moment. "Yes," she replied finally. "I just heard about it not more than a week ago. One of my clients owns an asteroid in that cluster. Why?"

"Third to the last page: _Have begun plans for station in Cerephus belt. Already on timetable, must make plans for future descendants. Acquisition of child will be tricky, but Miranda a help._ "

"I don't follow…"

"The entry is dated about a month after Kaylee and I married. I'm guessing that somehow my father learned of the marriage and began his plans to steal our child soon after. He had time—I mean, it's been three years—but my question is, how did he find out?"

"Wait a minute," said Inara. She ran her finger over the passage and stopped on a section. "Here," she pointed, "_Miranda a help._ That's not a person…"

"…that's about the Miranda incident. Of course." Simon held his head in his hands. "We were all over the Cortex on that one—it's what drove the prices on our bounties up."

"Which is how your father knew where you were—or, at least, who you were with." Inara sighed. "I knew one day Mal's sense of honor might get him into trouble. Fortunately, it's one of his better qualities—but don't tell him I said that." She smiled a small smile.

Simon returned the gesture. He knew full well about the captain's ideas between right and wrong, and was grateful to him for them. "No problem," he said. "So, the Cerephus belt?" he said, steering the conversation back to his original question.

"It's a haven for rich individuals who are, let's say...unscrupulous about certain laws and such. It's an asteroid belt that boasts hundreds of habitable areas—many buy whole asteroids outright. Call it the rich man's version of living on a traveling freighter."

"If my father was planning to build there, he'd want to own the place," Simon said quickly, getting up and starting toward the bridge. "He'd have bought under an assumed name, to throw off suspicion, but with luck we can track the asteroid and his hiding place." He broke into a run as he shouted for River to fire up the bridge's Cortex link.

***

Gabriel Tam sat in his reclining chair, finishing off a warm brandy. He marveled in the simplicity of his plan.

After the Miranda incident, it had taken no trouble to locate his children's whereabouts—a cheap little piece of _go-se_ freighter called _Serenity_. The captain, a worthless Browncoat, had had the audacity to name the ship after his own defeat—_like he'd had something to prove_, Gabriel thought.

The idea of tracking the freighter had been intriguing, but then he was reminded of the misfortune that had befallen others that had tried to steal his wayward offspring from their refuge. Not long after this discovery, one of his informers had spotted the ship near Northridge Abbey, on Tiantin. After a large bribe and a few well-placed threats on the abbey's future, the head abbot had given him a key piece of information—a copy of a marriage certificate that listed one Simon Tam as being married to a Kaywinnet Lee Frye. The girl had signed her name as Kaylee. His son had obviously forgotten to alter his identity, or he clung to the belief that marriage was sacred and had chosen not to lie on the certificate. The abbot had said that one of the brothers had performed the marriage, as a favor to an old friend, but had been forced to submit the paperwork despite the protests of the young couple.

From there Gabriel set his plans in motion. He had bought this little piece of refuge cheap, and began building a labyrinthine maze of hallways, examination rooms, laboratories, and a special cell near the middle of the whole operation. Sooner or later, he knew the girl would become pregnant—and that was when he would make his move. When a second informant had tipped him to the girl's status five months earlier, he'd made sure the captain of their ship had gotten a good offer of work transporting cargo to Elgin, where he would be waiting for them.

Now, three years from the start of this whole affair, he was so close to his prize he could taste it. Nine weeks, and the child would be his. He knew that placing the coding in his own children's genetic makeup would prove beneficial to him someday—and he was congratulating himself on his success. He'd hidden all trace of his presence on this rock—the odds of the girl's crewmates finding her were slim at best.

He turned his attention to a small Cortex screen on his desk, and flipped the power on. A view of the girl's room came up on the screen, showing her curled into a ball on her bare mattress. There was no sound, but Gabriel knew that the girl was probably sobbing by the looks of her expression, and shivering on top of that. It had been a week since he'd taken the girl's clothing, and she still refused to accept her circumstances.

The elder Tam thought about what he might do with her once he had the child—letting her go free was certainly not an option. She might be useful for experimentation—his contacts at Blue Sun were always looking for new specimens. The girl was pretty, in a plain sort of way, and might fetch a decent price on the auction block. He thought about leaving her in her prison to starve, or freeze to death. The idea of using the girl as a concubine had its merits as well.

One thing was certain, however—his son would drive himself crazy at the thought of not being able to save her, or the child, from their fates. He relished this thought most of all. The impetuous boy would suffer, and suffer dearly, for thwarting his carefully-laid plans. Heaven knew his wife found that out the hard way after she realized he'd sold their daughter to the government and was trying to do the same to a future grandchild. Gabriel remembered the sounds of his wife's screams coming from that room as he set the walls on fire and locked the door.

Yes, things were going according to plan this time…and this time, there was no one to derail him from achieving his goal.

***

Kaylee shivered. Her skin had a very slight tinge of blue to it--_gonna catch frostbite or my death of cold_, she thought grimly. Every day the _hundan _came into her room, telling her if she apologized for her lack of appreciation, she could have her clothes and blankets back.

_Her room._ Kaylee shuddered at that thought. Her room was in the passenger dorms on _Serenity_, where she and Simon slept. Thisroom she ocupied now...this was _not _"her" room at all. It was a prison—a cold, black prison she'd tried so desperately to escape.

She wrapped her arms around the thin pillow—the only thing left in the room, other than the furniture. She grew to revile the chair every time he drew it near, forcing her to lie flat on the bed as he touched her bare skin, placing his hands on her belly to feel the baby inside of her. She felt violated, as if the action was his twisted way of raping her.

Kaylee refused to apologize to the _hundan_, instead remaining silent each time he entered the room. She desperately wished that someone would come in and talk to her—there had been no conversation other than the ones _he'd_ had with her, and Kaylee was desperately lonely.

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, fighting off the ever-present chatter of her teeth. She tried to think of warm things, like hot cocoa and her engine room and a warm bath with big fluffy towels that she could cocoon herself in. It only made her reality that much more unbearable.

Suddenly, she heard a soft voice whispering something in her ear and felt something warm being laid overtop of her. Kaylee opened her eyes and found that someone had given her a fuzzy fleece blanket to curl up in. She lifted her head, wanting to see who her benefactor was, but the person was gone. It was a woman, whoever it was—and from the sound of the voice, Kaylee determined that it was a young woman.

Wrapping the small blanket tightly around her huddled form, Kaylee allowed herself to sleep soundly for the first time in days. Her teeth had finally stopped chattering, and she welcomed the silence.


	5. Chapter 5

Sarah Harper had figured that taking the job with the mysterious doctor might have been a mistake. Unfortunately, there had been little work on her homeworld of Dionysus, and the opportunity to earn decent coin had been too tempting to pass up.

She had been working as a lab technician for about six months when she was told that she would be assisting the various doctors that came and went with some testing. At first, Sarah thought there would be a large group that would be test subjects, like they did in the clinical trials back home, but to her surprise there only seemed to be one person—a pregnant girl that was not much older than herself.

Sarah had learned quickly not to ask questions, having made the mistake of expressing concern over the repeated testing of the girl. She worried that the extreme nature of some of the tests, like directly exposing both the girl and her unborn child to certain toxins, would cause irreparable damage both. She'd earned a severe rebuke from the doctor, who called himself Dr. Tam, and a quick transfer to the kitchens. Though Sarah knew something wasn't right about this whole operation, she couldn't afford to lose the job—there was no one else to take care of her.

There were times she saw the poor girl being marched through the halls, her hands held behind her back by a pair of silver wristbands. Sarah had tried to catch the girl's attention, but often the girl was either staring at the floor, choking back sobs, or trying with all her might to keep from being pushed into yet another exam room. It pained Sarah to see the girl being put through this much torture—it wasn't unlike the actions of the gang factions that plagued her own homeworld.

After two months of kitchen work, Dr. Tam requested that she herself see to bringing the girl her meals. She saw it as a way to repair her standing and possibly return to the lab, and she did so. Her instructions were simple—take the tray, place it on the table, and leave. There was to be no conversation with the girl at all, and if she tried to engage her in any, the tray was to be pushed through the door and left at the next meal. Sarah knew that she had to follow these instructions to the letter, and that the doctor had hidden cameras all over the facility—making it easier to spy on his employees.

The first few weeks, Sarah did as she was told. She came in, placed the tray on the table, and left. When the girl tried to talk to her, she shoved the tray through the door at the next meal. There were times when Dr. Tam personally took the girl her meals, and as of late those occurrences became more and more frequent.

Sarah held her breath and stepped inside the freezing room. She'd had to wait for the two guards standing watch to open the holo-door for her, and the process always took a minute or two. She fingered her white insulated parka, the one she'd been issued when she was assigned the job. At first, Sarah didn't understand the need for one—the facility was a bit chilly, but nothing she couldn't handle—but when she stepped into the girl's room for the first time, she thought she was standing inside an old walk-in freezer from Earth-that-was. It was so cold that she could faintly see her breath as she exhaled.

Today was no different—same freezing room, same girl, same routine—but when she entered, she saw something that completely shocked her: the sight of the poor girl, completely naked, huddled into a chattering ball on top of the great four-poster. Sarah was appalled and infuriated that someone would leave the girl, in her condition, in this state. It was then that Sarah realized that there was definitely something wrong about this whole operation.

It had taken a week to procure, but Sarah managed to sneak one of the fleece blankets from the supply closet into the girl's room. She'd managed to tuck it around herself and hidden it underneath the white parka. The guards never noticed. She'd taken care not to wake the girl from her fitful sleep, but she whispered this into her ear: "Take this. Hide it as soon as you hear someone come in. I'll see you tomorrow." She'd made sure to be a quiet as possible, on the off-chance that the video feeds were equipped with sound, but she could no longer see this poor girl suffer as she had been. She left the tray on the table, and made her exit.

She only hoped that the gesture would go unnoticed by her employer.

***

Pierre Cardin was not having his best day ever.

Oh, things had started out well enough—he'd managed to secure deals on two more of the pricey asteroids in the Cerephus belt. The cluster held endless possibility for earning potential, and seeing as he was the sole agent for the area, he was making a killing.

He had been finishing the initial paperwork on one of the sales—a tiny half-mile rock called Delta Cervatim—when suddenly the front door to his office had come crashing down.

Within seconds, no less than four types of firearms were pointed directly at him. One of the intruders, a man wearing no less than eight shades of brown as well as a knee-length duster, stepped forward.

"Seems to me like you got a nice little operation here," he said casually, as if he was opening a business deal. "I got no problem with a man doing business—like to do it myself, on occasion. What I got a problem with is people who don't see reason real clear. Now I'm only gonna ask this once, and then every time I don't get an answer, one of these folks behind me is gonna shoot ya. _Dong ma_?"

Pierre stared at the motley crew behind the man. There was a stunning colored woman holding some type of sawed-off weapon, a lithe little girl pointing a pistol straight for his legs, and an ugly-looking ogre with an odd sort of sneer that seemed to be carrying no less than eight different types of weapons. He himself was no expert, but Pierre thought he saw what looked to be a grenade hanging from the man's belt.

"What do you want?" he squeaked, hoping he could get out of this without divulging client information. It was one of the few things that attracted his rich clients—the belief that their information would never be made public.

A man stepped forward, looking like a younger version of one of his wealthy clients. He pulled a photograph out of his vest pocket and handed it to Pierre, who nervously accepted it. "Which parcel did this man buy?"

Pierre studied the photo. The man looked familiar, but not so that he could place him. "I-I'm not sure," he replied meekly.

The next thing he felt was white-hot pain shooting through his right leg.

"Now our doc here is one 'o the best," said the man in the duster, and if you answer quick he might just see to patching you up. On the other hand, you could not answer the question again, earn yourself more pain and lead…"

"The man never gave his name!" Pierre cried. "He bought his parcel under a company name…it was something Old Egyptian…"

There was a second burst of pain, and he saw the ugly man replace a revolver into its holster. Pierre looked and saw that his right arm was oozing blood.

"Left untreated, that will go into sepsis," said the young doctor. "Or you might just bleed out and die. I'd start answering the questions."

"Pharoan!" Pierre cried. "Pharoan Medical Research Institute! I can look up the parcel slip!"

"Well, that's more like it," said the man in the duster. Pierre managed to pick himself up off of the carpeted floor, dripping blood from his wounds. He knew that the carpet would certainly have to be replaced. He hobbled over to a datafile system and began typing in the information. Within seconds the sales slip came up on the screen.

"Here," Pierre said, turning the monitor towards the people in his office. "Is this what you want?"

The young doctor studied the information for a few minutes. Pierre had to bite back the urge to hurry the man so that he could receive medical attention.

"Here it is," the young man said finally. "He's on Centauri Five, furthest point in the cluster." He then turned his attention to Pierre. "How far is that from here?"

"I-I-I…" Pierre stammered, hoping to stall them, but now the girl began to aim her pistol. She seemed to be trying for an area between his legs that Pierre very much wanted to keep intact. "It's about three weeks from here," he said finally.

"There now, that wasn't so hard, was it?" The man in the duster smiled, and then sent the three shooters back to wherever it was they had come from. The young doctor pulled the bullets out of Pierre, and stitched him up. "Almost finished, doc?" the man called out.

"Keep this clean, and change out the bandages every couple of hours. It should heal nicely." The young man repacked his little red bag, and then left, the man in the duster following him.

Mal pulled Simon aside as they headed toward _Serenity_. "Nice work in there," he said, giving the boy a firm grip on the shoulder. "I know that wasn't easy, just letting us shoot him like that."

Simon's face showed no emotion. "I don't like to see people hurt that don't have to be. 'First do no harm,' you know?" Mal nodded as they stepped inside the cargo bay. "But in this case, if we didn't do what we did, it might mean more harm being done to Kaylee, or the baby." The younger man sighed. "It's a lesser of two evils, I suppose."

The look on the boy's face was enough for Mal. Simon had done what he had to in order to save his family, but it didn't mean he had to like it any. It was one of the things that Mal liked about him.


	6. Chapter 6

Kaylee wrapped herself in the fleece blanket. She was grateful to the girl, whoever she was, for giving it to her. For the first time in days, she was just a little bit warmer.

Suddenly the door opened. Kaylee panicked—if it was that _hundan_ behind the field, she would be punished severely for even having the blanket in the first place. She quickly the folded the treasured item and buried it deep underneath the mattress of the great four-poster. Kaylee then sat back down on top of it, gritting her teeth as the cold air rushed over her naked form. Kaylee desperately wished she had clothes of some kind—even the thinnest piece of cloth would afford her just the smallest bit of modesty. She silently cursed the _tamade xiao du liaumang_ for taking away even that shred of decency from her.

The visitor stepped inside—it was the girl that usually brought her food. Kaylee had tried to talk to her more than once, but her attempts at conversation had been crushed by the girl's silence. Today, however, the girl spoke as she placed her food on the table. "Smart girl, hiding he blanket," she whispered. "Did it help?"

"Yes," Kaylee replied, also in a whisper.

"I don't have long—just to leave the tray," the girl said. "There are cameras everywhere in this place. The head doctor here, he sees everything. Make sure you hide that when you hear the door open. You'll have a few minutes to do so."

Kaylee was overjoyed. These few words, though a warning, were the first conversation she'd had in months. "Thanks," she said gratefully.

The girl placed the tray and turned to leave. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Kaylee."

"I'm Sarah," said the girl, looking at her naked and shivering form, her clear eyes fixed on Kaylee's growing abdomen. "What they're doing to you, I think it's wrong," she added as she made her way to the door. "I'll be back soon."

Kaylee watched as Sarah stepped through the door; the door she could never walk through unguarded. There had been no visit from her captor today, no test or experiment she needed to be dragged out for. After waiting about ten minutes to be sure there was no one coming, Kaylee pulled the warm blanket out from under the mattress and wrapped herself inside of it. Her heart leapt at the thought of seeing the girl—Sarah—again, and she waddled over to the table and began to eat.

***

Gabriel Tam snapped off the vid-screen. Somehow, the wretched girl had managed to get a blanket—and not one he had authorized her to have. Cold waves of fury washed over his once elegant features.

He would be watching those who came in contact with the girl very closely. Someone had defied his authority, and that person would pay dearly. The girl would suffer as well, but for now he would let her think she was getting away with having the blanket. Once he found the little whore's accomplice, he would delight at making her watch as he slowly destroyed the person who'd defied him.

He called up a few more screens, relishing the thought of finally breaking the young woman's spirit.

***

Simon was beginning to hate the thought of time. There simply wasn't enough of it.

Considering Kaylee's date of conception, Simon knew that she would be due to give birth in about three weeks—that is, if his lunatic father hadn't already just simply cut the baby out of his wife and left her to die. _We have to get there before she goes into labor_, he thought grimly. _Otherwise, Kaylee doesn't have a chance._

He pulled out his pocket watch—a small gold clam shell with and old-fashioned face. A circular snap of Kaylee and himself lay inside the cover. He rubbed his thumb over the image of his wife's smiling face, her eyes sparkling on their wedding day. The couple had remembered several of Shepherd Book's stories from the monastery featuring a fellow called Shepherd Wallace, and they had sought him out to perform the ceremony. Simon had even risked Alliance capture by signing his own name on the certificate—it was the one thing he simply couldn't lie about, not even to save his own life. Marriage was simply too sacred an institution to consider it, as far as he was concerned. The captain had offered to marry them personally, but Simon had shot down that idea in favor of having the man act as his best man instead. In all honesty, he'd feared what Jayne's reaction would have been had he asked _him_ instead.

Simon always wore this watch. He didn't have a wedding ring—he'd thought it to be an easy way for the Alliance or some other enemy to find and hurt Kaylee as a way to get to him—but the watch served as a treasured replacement. For her part, Kaylee had a simple silver teardrop pendant she wore on a length of black cord. Like Simon and his watch, she never took the necklace off. The paperwork might be found eventually—Shepherd Wallace had had to file the certificate, but he'd hidden it in the system very, very well—but at least no lawman or Alliance federal would come to any conclusions at first glance.

There were sounds of steam escaping from a pipe or connection of some sort in the engine room, and Simon winced. He was running desperately low on supplies with which to patch up the other crew members that were now taking turns with the engine maintenance. He'd tried to take a turn at the engine himself, but both Mal _and_ Zoe had shot down that idea on the grounds that if the only doctor got hurt, who would patch _him_ up?

A flurry of curses, both in English and Chinese, came floating out of the engine room. "Well, _now_ you've gone and gorram done it," yelled Jayne.

"Jayne. Your mouth is moving. Best see to that," said Mal in a calm but deadly tone. "We'll just tie this thing off, and see to fixing the backup feeds…"

"You sure you know what you're doing, sir?" asked Zoe, who was standing just outside the engine room door.

"Honestly, Zoe?" asked Mal. "Not a chance in hell." Simon's face fell at that. If the engine was badly broken, they'd need to stop for repairs. There just wasn't enough time.

***

The first few conversations were halting, at best.

"Where am I?" the girl—Kaylee—had asked.

"A medical facility in the Cerephus belt," Sarah had replied, keeping her voice at a whisper.

---

"Why's it so cold in here?"

"I don't know. It's chilly in the halls, but nothing like this."

---

Gradually, Sarah managed to find ways to stall for time and allow the girl to open up. Dropping the empty tray, she stooped down to pick it up.

"I like your necklace."

Kaylee fingered the silver teardrop. It was the only thing that that monster _hadn't_ taken from her. "It's my wedding necklace."

"Never heard of those," Sarah said, smiling. "All I know are rings."

"'S a long story…"

---

"Why is the doctor so interested in your baby?"

"Dunno," Kaylee said, clasping her banded wrists around her bare stomach. "Think it has something to do with it being his grandbaby, maybe."

Sarah was silent. Dr. Tam's _grandchild_?

She knew the stories, about the Tam children. They were more like legends than stories, now—it seemed impossible that they could even be real. "Then your husband…" she breathed.

"Yeah," Kaylee said sadly. "Wanted Simon to be here when the baby came, but…" She hung her head, and Sarah could see a tear fall softly onto the girl's chest. "He's gonna kill me," she sobbed. "Soon as the baby comes, he's—he's…"

"No." Sarah was quiet, but adamant. She didn't know how she could help the poor girl, but the thought of Dr. Tam hurting this sweet person reviled her. She collected the tray and left, her mind already working a plan.

***

_That's it,_ thought Gabriel as he stared into the vid-screen. _There's the little traitor…_

He pressed a button, and within minutes a pair of guards appeared. "Bring me the girl from the kitchens," he snapped. "Harper, I believe her name is…"


End file.
